Critic: Americans in danger of 'slavery'

Multiple NAFTA-related superhighways could slice the United States into economic and social regions, facilitate crime including drug trafficking and illegal immigration and shift huge amounts of money to the rich, critics of the paving plans have told WorldNetDaily.

One leader even likens the prospects to “slavery” for the American people, because of the loss of control they would experience.

“What I’m trying to communicate is this: if you’re not enforcing our immigration laws, you’ve nullified millions of votes. You have broken the Republic. And if that’s not restored, and people do not have a Republic to address their grievances, then there are only two alternatives, slavery and subjugation or a war of violence,” Gheen said.

He noted that there are plans for a Spanish interest to own one of the road projects and charge tolls, and a planned fund for U.S. taxpayers to pay for infrastructure upgrades in Mexico.

“This is going a bit beyond foreign aid. All of these things are extra-constitutional,” he said. Critics have noted that their perception is that one goal of the massive superhighway corridors would be to ship manufacturing costs to China and handling costs to Mexico, bypassing large segments of the U.S. economy now involved in that work.

“I think that what we’re looking at is massive transfers of wealth,” Gheen said.

He said historically, the United States has pushed backed against “this type of power grab by commercial interests” and that has been fundamental to the prosperity of the country.

However, if it is not headed off the American public will end up being treated like “cattle.”

“Any time in history when people are treated like cattle, the potential for bad things is extraordinary,” he told WND. “We don’t even control our roads any more, our ports. We won’t be controlling our food supply. That’s what it is to be a slave.”

“Based on the facts as I see them, the American people are about to get arguably the rudest awakening in the last one hundred years,” freelance writer and trucker Alan Burkhart argues in a posting on the Truthout online forum.

He said the highways would meld the economies of the United States, Canada and Mexico into one based on the labor rate in China, which would be able to ship goods to western Mexico ports and haul them by trucks throughout North America.

The routes that have been proposed include a channel of transportation lanes coming out of Mexico, through Texas and up to Canada, dividing into two different routes that would bisect Minnesota and head into New England. Another plan, called the Canamex, would cross New Mexico and Arizona, heading up to Canada through Utah and Idaho.

“It’ll allow imports from all over the world to bypass American ports by making landfall in Mexico,” Burkhart wrote. “There will be only the most superficial security measures in place, and low-wage Mexican truckers will stream unimpeded across our border.”

As WorldNetDaily already has reported in a series of reports work is ongoing on a number of highway projects related to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The losers will be West Coast shipyard workers, American truckers and trucking companies and others who handle consumer goods in the U.S., as well as even Mexican manufacturers who would not be able to compete with Chinese labor rates, critics said.

“If this process continues to move forward, the American middle class will be a dim memory. Like modern-day Mexico, we’ll have two classes: The very rich and the very poor,” Burkhart wrote.

A California congressman also has raised concerns about the attractions that bring illegal immigrants into the nation, something that thousands of miles of new highways would only facilitate.

California Rep. Elton Gallegly wrote in a recently published column that the two magnets that draw illegal immigrants are employment and the acceptance of easily forged, foreign-issued identification by banks to open accounts.

In a piece titled, “Take away welcome mat for illegal immigrants,” he notes those practices are a boon to drug smugglers and terrorists.

“Until the United States returns to its foundation as a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws, discussion about any other aspects of immigration reform is mute,” he said.

A Western Colorado resident expressed concern about the proposed swatch of concrete through that region of the United States.

“Actually, its proper came is CANAMEX, which is even more unsettling. Notice the utter absence of ‘US’ in the name,” Cindy L. Espinoza wrote following an earlier WND report.

“Ominously, (U.S. Rep. Raul) Grijalva’s proposed Western Route of the CANAMEX passes directly through much of the same territory that is even now used to flood our nation with foreign nationals, crime, narcotics, and methamphetamine,” she said.

“What the hell do we need from Mexico, anyway? Convoys of trucks carrying their illiterate laborers, criminals, and narcotics?

“We already can’t keep up with the endless northward march of foreign nationals invading us on foot, many here to commit crime and traffic in narcotics, and now we’re going to build them a 12-lane superhighway??”

A group organized to monitor the proposed NAFTA corridors said they would “irreversibly divide the U.S. geographically, economically, and socially for the sake of profit.”

An ALIPAC website column by Richard D. Vogel of Monthly Review said while the corridors would consume 146 acres per mile, and affect communities, air currents, watersheds and wildlife, there are bigger concerns.

“The primary purpose of the NAFTA corridor system is to accommodate the flood of cheap manufactured goods from the Far Eastern Pacific Rim to the heartland of America,” it said. “The strategy of many corridor backers is to bypass organized labor on the West Coast … and route the containerized freight south through Mexican ports and then north by rail and truck via the corridor system in order to save on shipping costs.”

Many groups are opposing the plans, including dozens of counties where leaders have passed their own resolutions against having the superhighways.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul earlier criticized the “Security and Prosperity Partnership Of North America” plan, including the highway, in his weekly “Texas Straight Talk” column.

“A massive highway is being planned to stretch from Canada into Mexico, through the state of Texas,” Paul wrote. “This is likely to cost the U.S. taxpayer untold billions of dollars, will require eminent domain takings on an almost unimaginable scale, and will make the U.S. more vulnerable to those who seek to enter our country to do us harm.”

He said it appears the SPP is an effort to “coordinate” border security as well as economic and trade policy among the governments of the three nations, a move that probably would give government more control over international trade.

A Texas group opposing the planned acres of concrete, CorridorWatch, said many of the impacts of such projects haven’t even been considered yet.

The superhighway routes generally are expected to have separate lanes for passenger vehicles and large trucks, freight railways, high-speed commuter railways, infrastructure for utilities including water lines, oil and gas pipelines, and transmission lines for electricity, broadband and other telecommunications services.